The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-01-19

house lives a week after. VIII the burglar
be at the gate Of Heaven waiting when the
house owner comes inl Win the cebauchee
ami the hbertine go right in among the fami-
lies Of Heavenf / wonder if Herod
is PLAYING on the banks of the
River Of Life with the children
h massacred. l wonder if Charles Guiteau
and John Wilkes Booth are up there shooting
at a mark / do not now controvert it, al
though / must say that for such a miserable
Heaven l have 10 admiration. But the
Bible does not say: Believe IN perdition end
b. saved" Because all are saved, according
to your theory, that ought not to keep you
from loving and serving Christ Do not re-
fuse TO come ashore because all the others,
according to your theory, are going to
get ashore. You may have a differ
ent theory about chemistry, about as
tronomy, about the atmosphere from
that which others adopt, but you
are not therefore hindered from action. Be
cause your theory of light is different from
others. do not refuse to open your eyes. Be
cause your theory of air is different you do
not refuse TO breathe. Because your theory
about the stellar system is different, you do
not refuse to acknowledge the north star
Why should the fact that your theological
theories are different, hinder you from acting
upon what you know2 If you have not a
whole ship fashioned in the theological dry
docks to bring you to wharfage, you have at
least a plank "Some on broken pieces Of
the ship"
"But ! don't believe in revivals" Then go
to your room, and all alone with your door
locked give your heart to God and join some
church where the thermometer never gets
higher than 80 in the shade. @But / do not
believe in baptisrnn Come in without it and
settle that matter afterward. But there are
so many inconsistent Christians" Then come
in and show them by good example how
professors ought TO act But | don't believe
in the Old Testament Then come in ON the
New. But / don't like the Book Of Ro-
rnans!" Then come in ON Matthew or Luke.
Refusing to come to Christ, whom you admit
TO be the Saviour of the lost, because you
cannot admit other things, you are like man
out there in that Mediterranean tempest and
tossed in the Melta breakers. refusing to
come ashore until he can mend the pieces of
the broken ship. | hear him say: Il won't
go in on any of these planks until l know in
what part of the ship they belong. When l
can get the windlass in the right place, and
the sails ses and that keel piece where it be-
longs, and that floor timber right, and these
ropes untangled, win go ashore. l am an
old sailor and know all about ships for
forty years, and as soon as | can get
the vessel ahOat in good shape / will
come in A man drifting by ON a
piece of wood overhears him and says:
"You win drown before you get that ship re-
| constructed. Better do as / am doing. /
know nothing about ships, and never saw
one before / came on board this, and cannot
swim a stroke, but l am going ashore on this
shivered timber" The man in the offing
while trying to mend his ship goes down.
| The man who trusted to the plank is saved.
| O, my brother, let your smashed up system
of theology go to the bottom while you come
in ON u splintered spar? 'Some on broken
| pieces Of the ship"
You may get all your difficulties settled as
| Garibaldi, the magnetic Italian, got his gar
| dens made. When the war between Austria
and Sardinia broke out he was living at
Caprera, very rough and uncultured island
home. But he went forth with his sword to
achieve the liberation OF Naples and Sicily,
and gave 9000,0 900 people free government
under Victor Emmanuel. Garibaldi, after
being absent two years from Caprera, re-
turned and, when he approached it, he found
that his home had by Victor Emmanuel, as a
surprise, been Edenized. Trimmed shrub
berry had taken the place of thorny thickets,
gardens the place of barrenness, and the
| old rookery in which he once lived had
| given way TO a pictured mansion where he
| lived In comfort the rest of his days. And
| tell you il you will come and enlist under the
banner of our Victor Emmanuel, and follow
| Him through thick and thin, and fight His
battles and endure His sacrifices, you will
| find after a while that He has changed your
| heart from jungle of thorny skepticisms
into garden all a-bloom with luxuriant joy
that you have never dreamed Of From
| tangled Caprera of sadness into a paradise of
| God!
| do not know how your theological system
went to pieces. 1t may be that your parents
started you with only one plank, and you be-
lieve little or nothing. Or they may have
been too rigid and severe in religious
discipline and cracked you over the head
| with a psalm book. 1t may be that some
| partner in business, who was a member of an
evangelical church, played on you trick that
disguised you with religion. 1t may be that
| you have associates who have talked against
| Christianity in your presence until you are
| ''all at sea- and you dwell more on things
| that you do not believe than on things you do
| believe. You are in one respect like Lord
| Nelson, when a signal was lifted that he
wished TO disregard and he put his sea glass
to his blind eye and said: Il really do not see
the signal o, my hearer, put this field
glass of the Gospel no longer to your blind
eye and say cannot see, but put 1t to your
other eye, the eye of faith, and you will see
| Christ, and He is all you need to see.
If you can believe nothing else, you GER
| tainly believe in vicarious suffering, for you
see it almost every day in some shape. Last
month the steamship Knickerbocker, of the
| Cromwell line, running between New Or
| leans and here, was in great storms, and the
| captain and crew saw the schooner Mary D.
| Cranmer, of Philadelphia, in distress. The
weather cold, the waves mountain high, the first
officer of the steamship and four men put out
| in a lfeboat to save the crew of the schooner
and reached the vessel and towed it out of
! danger, the wind shifting so that the schooner
was saved But the five men of the steamship
| coming back, their boat capsized, yet righted
| again and came on, the sailors coated with
| ice. The boat capsized again, and three times
upset and was righted, and line was thrown
| the poor fellows but their hands and arms
were frozen they could not grasp it,
and great wave rolled over them, and they
went down never to rise till the sea gives up
| its dead. Appreciate that heroism and self
| sacrifice of the brave fellows we all can, and
can we not appreciate the Christ who put out
| in more biting cold and into a more over
| whelming surge to bring us out of infinite
| peril into everlasting safetyi The wave of
| human hate rolled over Him from one side,
| and the wave of hellsh fury rolled over Him
on the other side. Oh, the thickness of the
| night and the thunder of the tempest into
which Christ plunged for our rescued
Come in on that one narrow beam, the
| beam of the cross. Let all else go and cling
| to that. Put that under you, and with the
earnestness of swimmer struggling for his
-e1x<.
fire OF welcome already built, and alreadv
many, who were as far out as You are are
standing in its genial and heavenly glow.
The angels of Gods rescue are wading out
into the surf to clutch your hand, and they
know how exhausted you are, and all the re-
deemed prodigals of heaven are ON the beach
with new white robes to clothe all those who
come in on broken pieces of the ship.
My sympathies are for such all the more
because / was naturally skeptical, disposed to
question everything about this life and the
next, and was in danger of being further out
to sea than any of the 216 in the Mediterra-
mean breakers. and was sometimes the an
noyance of my theological professor because
asked so many questions. But came in on
plank. | knew Christ was the Saviour Of
sinners, and that was sinner, and got
ashore, and do not propose to go out on that
sea again l have not for thirty minutes dis
cussed the controyerted points of theology in
thirty years. And during the rest of my life
do not propose to discuss them for thirty
seconds.
| would rather, In a mud scow, try to
weather the worst cyclone that ever swept
up from the Caribbean than risk my immor-
tai soul in useless and perilous discussions in
which some of my brethren in the ministry
are indulging. They remind me of a com
pany of sailors standing on Ramsgate pier
head, from which the hfeboats are usually
launched, and coolly discussing the different